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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28622004">rest ye, the wicked</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/deniigiq/pseuds/deniigiq'>deniigiq</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Daredevil (Comics), Daredevil (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Complicated Relationships, Gen, Identity Reveal, Jack didn't die, Lawyers, Matt is a boxer, Mike is DD, Secret Identity, Twins, it's all fucked up and wild</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 10:20:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,466</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28622004</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/deniigiq/pseuds/deniigiq</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt Murdock, law-school drop-out, professional boxer, didn’t need to be in a jail cell. He needed to be at a hospital. A hospital for enhanced persons, really, so that he could be tested for X genes or mutations or whatever. Foggy didn’t know how to make that happen in these circumstances, though. But he did know this:</p><p>He was going to kill the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen the second he got hands on him.</p><p>(The Murdocks have a devil among them and Foggy is determined to find out who it is.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kirsten McDuffie &amp; Franklin "Foggy" Nelson, Matt Murdock &amp; Franklin "Foggy" Nelson, Matt Murdock &amp; Mike Murdock, Matt Murdock &amp; Mike Murdock &amp; Jonathan "Jack" Murdock, Mike Murdock &amp; Franklin "Foggy" Nelson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>286</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>rest ye, the wicked</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>so everyone in our server seems to have a DD!Mike and I respectfully am following in their footsteps.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ten years ago, Foggy had embarked on what he was now calling the worst decision of his life. It started with an ‘L’ and ended with ‘aw school.’</p><p>Marci, however, didn’t call it that. She instead referred to it as ‘trial by fire’ and Jen, sworn professional nemesis according to the handbook of school rivalries, called it ‘a decision best not made under the influence.’</p><p>Things were supposed to get easier after it. That’s what people said. And Foggy wanted to go hunt down his career counselor from undergrad and hold their neck tenderly between his bare hands.</p><p>‘It was supposed. To get. Easier,’ he dreamed of saying to Mr. Klinnis with a face-breaking smile.</p><p>Fun fact: it didn’t.</p><p>Worse fact: it never would.</p><p>And in the face of Kirsten McDuffie, former Assistant DA, standing on Foggy’s doorstep at 2am, that fact would never be more clear.</p><p>“Mr. Nelson,” she said. “Do you know a man by the name of Matthew Murdock?”</p><p>There was only one answer to this question.</p><p>“Yes,” Foggy said with suspicion.</p><p>McDuffie’s eyelashes were as heavy as the dread settling at the bottom of Foggy’s belly.</p><p>“When was the last time you two spoke?” she asked.</p><p>A wild question to be asking in a doorway at 2am with no cops present, but sure okay.</p><p>“Nine years ago,” Foggy said. “We were roommates.”</p><p>McDuffie nodded slowly. She was so tired.</p><p>“I hate to ask you this,” she said, “But could you tell me: as far as you are aware, did Matt Murdock ever do anything that you found…out of the ordinary?”</p><p>Foggy stared.</p><p>“He eats the greens of his strawberries,” he said.</p><p>McDuffie’s forehead crumpled in on itself.</p><p>“Murder?” Foggy asked.</p><p>“Anything else? Anything at all?” Kirsten asked.</p><p>“Assault?” Foggy asked her.</p><p>“Perhaps related to obsessive fitness regimes or something?”</p><p>Oh. Yes to that one. Murdock used to go to the gym at least five times a week. He was a boxer. A Paralympic or something. He’d gotten a scholarship for it, so that wasn’t like, out of the question.</p><p>“He was a jock, yeah,” Foggy said. “To be honest, I didn’t see much of him out of our apartment and he, well, you know, never saw a lick of me. Was it battery?”</p><p>“What makes you pick the violent charges?” McDuffie asked.</p><p>“The hour at which we speak,” Foggy said.</p><p>“Not Murdock’s behavior,” McDuffie clarified.</p><p>“No,” Foggy said. “That guy was wasted on boxing.”</p><p>A silence snuck in between them where Jesus would be standing at a highschool dance. McDuffie’s lower lip dropped.</p><p>“Say more,” she said.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Matt was at the 15<sup>th</sup> precinct with some <em>serious</em> damage done to his face. Holy shit. Foggy hadn’t seen the guy in ages and now he could barely recognize him.</p><p>His eyes—god, man. His eyes. They were so black and swollen they nearly didn’t open. Not that that was a problem for Matt sight-wise, but still.</p><p>
  <em>Christ. </em>
</p><p>“Matt, it’s Kirsten,” McDuffie said as she stepped into the room.</p><p>Matt’s head kept dipping forward, once, then twice. Slowly over and over. Foggy had seen that nod in a thousand student bars after a thousand student brawls. This man was on the edge of consciousness.</p><p>“Matt?” McDuffie repeated.</p><p>Matt startled and started searching the room with his face.</p><p>“Kirs…ten?” he slurred.</p><p>“Hey, yeah it’s me,” McDuffie said. “I found a witness for you.”</p><p>Matt reached out for her. She caught his hand. The knuckles were torn and raw. Foggy flicked his eyes up from them to Matt’s face again.</p><p>It had been nine years since Matt had turned a smile on Foggy for the last time. It had jittered then as it jittered now.</p><p>“Didya call my dad?” Matt asked.</p><p>“I did,” McDuffie said. “He says he’s tryin’ to work out bail anyways.”</p><p>“He don’t ever listen to me,” Matt said sadly, dropping his face to the table in the cold room.</p><p>McDuffie turned to Foggy with a sigh in her eyes.</p><p>“Matt,” she said, “Do you remember Foggy Nelson?”</p><p>Matt’s head came up and started searching again.</p><p>“Foggy?” he asked.</p><p>“That’s me,” Foggy said.</p><p>“Foggy??”</p><p>It hurt to smile.</p><p>“What’s up, pal? It’s been ages,” Foggy said. Matt reached a hand out mostly towards him. He took it.</p><p>“You’re a lawyer?” Matt asked.</p><p>“Sure am,” Foggy said. “Now, what’s all this about, man? They’re calling you Daredevil?”</p><p>Matt’s thick eyebrows rushed down and towards each other.</p><p>“I’m not that guy,” he said, “Foggy, I don’t understand what’s happening. No one will listen to me.”</p><p>Yeah, man. They thought they had Hell’s Kitchen’s Enemy Number One in the bag. They weren’t going to hear jack shit if it didn’t ring along that same scale.</p><p>“How do you know you’re not?” Foggy asked, drawing up a chair so that he wasn’t looming over Matt while he was handcuffed to the table. It never felt fair.</p><p>Matt’s bottom lip was split in the middle and scabbed.</p><p>“How—what?” he asked.</p><p>“How do you know you’re not Daredevil?” Foggy asked again, slower this time.</p><p>“I don’t understand,” Matt said in resignation. “Everyone keeps asking me this, but I don’t understand. Is that my burden to prove?”</p><p>Matt wasn’t stupid. He’d never been stupid. Jockish, yeah. Bro-y? Terribly. But in a sweet way. An ‘always the bridesmaid, never the bride’ kind of way.</p><p>Matt could have been a lawyer. He could have laid the rest of them to waste—if only he hadn’t dropped out.</p><p>“Right now? Yeah,” Foggy said, sitting back like McDuffie. “Because these folks out here seem to have a whole lot of evidence stacked up against you, bud.”</p><p>Matt bit his lip and lowered his face. He shook his head.</p><p>“Matt,” McDuffie said. “Just answer the question. Please.”</p><p>He didn’t want to; Foggy could see that from a mile off. And that was interesting. Really interesting, actually.</p><p>Like, if Foggy was in this position right here, with slightly more knowledge of the law than your average guy off the street, then he would be singing whatever notes he had in his pocket. He’d have alibis laid out. He’d be listing off the differences between him and—</p><p>Oh.</p><p>Hold up.</p><p>“Matt,” he said. “Do you know why these folks think you’re Daredevil?”</p><p>Matt tilted his head at the table but didn’t answer. Foggy waited. McDuffie cleared her throat, but Foggy shot her a look out of the corner of his eye. She was the one who asked for Foggy’s help. She had to let him take the lead here.</p><p>“Is it because he boxes?” Matt asked hesitantly.</p><p>Ahhhh. There we go.</p><p>“Yeah,” Foggy said. “Yeah, it’s believed that Daredevil primarily uses boxing techniques in his fights.”</p><p>There was silence.</p><p>“It’s just a name,” Matt said out of nowhere. “I didn’t—these kids at school used to call me it. They were—they ain’t mean it, Fogs. It was a joke.”</p><p>“What was a joke?” Foggy asked sharply. The urge to let his mind and tongue slip low to match Matt’s drawl was strong like fingers pulling through velvet. But he couldn’t. Maybe later, when Matt was out of this place. But not now. No, he needed answers.</p><p>“What was a joke?” he repeated to Matt’s shaking head.</p><p>“Matt, we’re trying to help you,” McDuffie said. “I know it’s overwhelming, but you need to tell us as much as you know so that we can get you home, okay? Think of your dad. He’s worried sick.”</p><p>Foggy jerked his face her way and pressed his lips hard together. He snapped his head barely an inch to the side one time.</p><p>It was too late, though, Matt was squeezing and picking at his reddened fingers in horror. His breathing seemed to have picked up. If Foggy didn’t know better, he would have thought the guy was one bad breath away from a meltdown.</p><p>“It was a joke,” Matt said so softly his voice broke. “’Cause I was so scared of ‘em.”</p><p>Foggy sucked in a deep breath as ammunition for a sigh.</p><p>“So you’re sayin’ that bullies called you ‘Daredevil,’” he said.</p><p>Matt rubbed that scabbed lip against his top one and then nodded.</p><p>“Was this before or after you went blind?” Foggy asked.</p><p>Matt shook his head.</p><p>“So both,” Foggy translated.</p><p>He got a nod.</p><p>“And you decided to reclaim it when you went pro?” Foggy asked.</p><p>“My pops suggested it,” Matt admitted. “I needed somethin’ catchy. And I had it before--before that other guy—I had it before that other guy, Foggy.”</p><p>“Yeah, I believe it,” Foggy said. “But that’s not the whole story, is it?”</p><p>Matt curled in on himself, just as McDuffie said he would.</p><p>“You know who he is, don’t you?” Foggy said.</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“You do,” Foggy said. “And you’re takin’ the fall for ‘im. Why? Why would you do that?”</p><p>“I’m not.”</p><p>“You <em>are</em>,” Foggy said. “Either you’re coverin’ for him or you <em>are</em> him, bud. That’s the view we’ve got hovering over us right now, do you feel me?”</p><p>Matt said nothing. His worrying fingers stilled.</p><p>“If you want to get out of here, you have to talk,” Foggy said. “We’re attorneys. I agreed to join this case. I’m your lawyer, too, alright? Whatever you say to me or Kirsten is confidential.”</p><p>That was it, friend. Loosen those shoulders. It was going to be okay.</p><p>Also please don’t say you’re Daredevil. Please don’t say you’re Daredevil. Please don’t say you’re Daredevil.</p><p>“I—”</p><p>Come on.</p><p>(Not DD. Not DD. Not DD.)</p><p>“I might—”</p><p>Come on. Come on.</p><p>Matt’s fingers crushed his opposite thumb.</p><p>“Can I—can I talk to my dad?” he asked quietly.</p><p>McDuffie deflated just as Foggy felt his own shoulders do the same.</p><p>“No, I’m sorry,” he said. “You’d have to ask the police and they’re going to view that as preparation for a confession, do you see?”</p><p>Matt said nothing.</p><p>“Yeah,” he said after a long moment. “I just wanted him to know first.”</p><p>McDuffie’s head twitched and she leaned her elbows against the desk.</p><p>“Know what?” she asked.</p><p>Matt swallowed. Foggy felt the frown in his own eyebrows.</p><p>“It’s not gonna help me,” Matt said.</p><p>“It might,” Foggy countered lightly.</p><p>“No, it <em>ain’t</em>,” Matt sighed. “But it’s like—I dunno how to describe it--I can’t see shit, okay?”</p><p>Okay.</p><p>“But it’s not empty. The world isn’t empty. You know?”</p><p>Nope. That made no sense. Go back.</p><p>“No, no. Sorry. Bad words. It’s like. Hng. It’s like. Hm. You know how when you touch a stove, it’s hot? And you get a burn right? But it heals over a little bit and when you touch things the skin’s all new and sensitive so everything kinda hurts, even soft stuff and water?” Matt asked.</p><p>Foggy and McDuffie exchanged looks.</p><p>“Yes,” McDuffie said slowly.</p><p>“That—that’s how it feels for me,” Matt said. “But in every direction.”</p><p>Dude, what?</p><p>“No, I’m doing it wrong again. Sorry. I’m—I don’t—my brother, he knows. He says it better,” Matt said.</p><p>“Your brother,” Foggy repeated. “You told him about this? I thought you wanted to tell your dad first?”</p><p>Matt opened his mouth, then closed it and grimaced.</p><p>“It’s a secret,” McDuffie translated. “So you’ve got these…powers.”</p><p>“<em>Yes</em>,” Matt blurted out. “It’s like—everything is <em>so loud</em>, Kirsten. And hot. And cold. And loud. God, it’s so loud, especially when you catch a shot right here,” he scrubbed at his temple, “And you lose focus for barely a second and bam. It’s all gone.”</p><p>“What’s all gone?” Foggy asked.</p><p>“The world,” Matt said. “The world’s gone. It makes itself into pictures in my head. Like, shapes. I hear things and I can feel their heat and the like, the wind they make. And I can feel all these tiny, tiny bumps and dips and hairs and sometimes they make shapes.”</p><p>“In your head,” Foggy repeated.</p><p>“Yeah. In my…head,” Matt trailed off.</p><p>“I sound like I’ve lost it,” he said abruptly.</p><p>Yes, sir, you do.</p><p>“Go back to the start,” Foggy said. “You’re saying that you’ve got extra-sensitive, what, hearing? And touch?”</p><p>“Yes,” Matt said. “And taste. And smell.”</p><p>“Since when?” McDuffie asked.</p><p>“Since I went blind,” Matt said, picking at a scab on the knuckle of his thumb anxiously.</p><p>“And you never told anyone but your brother,” Foggy said.</p><p>Matt nodded hurriedly.</p><p>“And that’s what allows you to box?” Foggy tried. “Because this all makes pictures in your head.”</p><p>“<em>Yes,</em>” Matt said. “Yes, yes. You get it. I can <em>feel</em> them comin’ at me.”</p><p>Dude.</p><p>“You’re enhanced,” Foggy said.</p><p>Matt’s face toppled from something between delight and shock to complete and utter emptiness.</p><p>“I’m what?” he said.</p><p>McDuffie sat back in her seat. Foggy felt his chest rise. They met eyes one last time.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Matt Murdock, law-school drop-out, professional boxer, didn’t need to be in a jail cell. He needed to be at a hospital. A hospital for enhanced persons, really, so that he could be tested for X genes or mutations or whatever. Foggy didn’t know how to make that happen in these circumstances, though. But he did know this:</p><p>He was going to kill the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen the second he got hands on him.</p><p>“We don’t know that he’s doing this on purpose,” McDuffie said breathlessly.</p><p>Foggy forced himself to slow his pace for her.</p><p>“I’d bet a grand on it,” he said.</p><p>“<em>Foggy</em>.”</p><p>“Two grand,” Foggy said. “What a fucking dick. What an absolute—shit is too good for him, Kirsten. He ought to be boiled.”</p><p>“Boiled,” Kristen said flatly. “What, for impersonation?”</p><p>“For framing,” Foggy said, whirling around. “Matt thinks he’s going to jail for the next ten years for not being blind enough, all because this yahoo stole his moniker and moves. Whoever they are, they know exactly what they’re doing. They know more about Matt than he does. And they’re going to let him take the fall for them when he’s done <em>nothing</em> wrong. That’s just sick.”</p><p>Kirsten, Foggy noted, didn’t disagree, which was good because she couldn’t because Foggy was right on the money here.</p><p>“If Matt tells the cops that he’s enhanced, they’re just going to use that as evidence that he’s lying to them and really is DD,” she said.</p><p>“I know,” Foggy moaned. “And that’s the cherry on the shit-sundae, isn’t it?”</p><p>Kirsten huffed, then buried a hand in her hair.</p><p>“We need to prove that he’s innocent,” she said.</p><p>“No, we need to find Daredevil,” Foggy said. “If he rears his head while Matt’s in custody, then that’ll be proof enough that they’ve got the wrong guy. They can’t keep him without probable cause.”</p><p>“The cause is probable already, Foggy,” Kirsten said. “He’s a boxer. Everyone calls him ‘Daredevil.’ He’s <em>enhanced</em>.”</p><p>“The cops don’t know that yet,” Foggy said. “And we’re not going to let them know until it is absolutely inevitable. We have to find Daredevil.”</p><p>Kirsten stopped in the middle of the pavement and laughed.</p><p>“<em>We</em>,” she said. “No, no, friend. You’ve been up north for too long. <em>You </em>don’t find Daredevil. <em>He</em> finds you.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Amended plan: Foggy was going to lure Daredevil out with a distress signal, then beat him to a pulp and throw him past the cops’ front entrance so that he could waltz in, grab Matt, and take the poor guy home to his dad.</p><p>God.</p><p>Everyone knew Jack Murdock had already suffered enough tragedy. He didn’t need this on top of that bullet scar.</p><p>“You know Jack?” Kirsten asked outside Mitchell’s, where she was watching Foggy down a third shot of espresso so that he could stay awake for his 10 o’ clock.</p><p>“Everyone knows Jack,” Foggy snipped at her. “Didn’t you grow up here?”</p><p>Kirsten blinked.</p><p>No, clearly not. She didn’t have the accent. Damn, Foggy needed sleep.</p><p>“Boxing legend,” Foggy said. “Rose the ranks in the 90s, got shot in the head after breakin’ a deal with the mob. Nearly died, then switched up to informant and got those murderers locked away for life. Guy’s sort of a big deal. I was a kid back then. You didn’t walk these streets at night; the mob would catch you and sell you or worse. After all that went down with Jack, a lot of groups got scared to operate in the area for a solid five years.”</p><p>Kirsten cocked an eyebrow.</p><p>“Scared of Jack,” she said.</p><p>Foggy frowned.</p><p>“Well, not<em> of</em> Jack,” he said. “But he was like, a symbol of this big push for change, you know? Folks were outraged when he nearly got tanked. He was a sign of hope around these parts—there was a lot of pride in him comin’ up and makin’ it big.”</p><p>Kirsten was still making a weird face. Foggy didn’t know what it meant and he didn’t have time to find out. He had to be at work, like, <em>now</em>.</p><p>Kirsten told him she’d pick up the bill and waved him off.</p><p>“Thanks, partner,” she said while he threw on his coat. “We’ll be in touch.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>There were so many cases. So, so many. Foggy was drowning in them in his glass bird-box in the sky. Hogarth was not sympathetic. She told him that she planned on leaving HB&amp;C and if he wanted to make partner at her new firm when she did, he had to pick up as much as experience as humanly possible before then.</p><p>Matt’s bloody knuckles vanished in the sea of file folders on Foggy’s desk.</p><p>They stayed out of his mind until six o’ clock rolled around and Marci texted him to ask where the fuck he was that wasn’t at their reservation.</p><p>He practically threw down the folders.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“Matt? As in <em>Matt</em>-Matt?” Marci asked over a pesto so green it was nearly radiating.</p><p>“Believe it or not,” Foggy sighed.</p><p>“He’s alive?”</p><p>“And just as sad as ever,” Foggy said.</p><p>Marci took a slow sip from her wine glass. Foggy pushed some weirdly small carrots around his plate.</p><p>“His drawl’s back,” he said without knowing why.</p><p>“He’s a boxer, Fogs, of course it is,” Marci said almost immediately.</p><p>“I know, I know. It’s just weird to hear it. From him, I mean. You know, he always talked so proper, even around the dorm,” Foggy said. “Now, he’s like, leaning into it. He sounds like my dad.”</p><p>“Like home?” Marci asked.</p><p>Foggy cut his eyes at her. She took another strategically long sip of wine.</p><p>“He should’ve stayed,” he said.</p><p>“Fogs,” Marci sighed.</p><p>“If he’d just asked, we could have found him another scholarship, and he wouldn’t be in this mess.”</p><p>“Foggy.”</p><p>“It’s fuckin’ tragic, girl. That’s what it is. It’s so cliché. So <em>typical</em>. Everyone from HK is the exact same; they hit a speedbump and drop everything. It doesn’t even occur to them that multiple pegs can fit in the same hole—”</p><p>“Foggy-bear.”</p><p>He shut up. Marci set down her glass.</p><p>“You’re mad because you love them,” she said. “But these people are all adults. They make their decisions. They have to live with them.”</p><p>Foggy stabbed one of those damn carrots with his fork.</p><p>“Babe, you’re so mad.”</p><p>“Matt could’ve been someone,” he said darkly.</p><p>“He <em>is</em> someone,” Marci said. “He’s just not who you wanted him to be. What did you expect, huh? For you and him to stick together forever? To start a firm together with blind jock Murdock and live happily ever after, taking care of charity case after charity case in Hell’s Kitchen?”</p><p>No carrot could be half as offensive as Marci in this moment. Not even an overpriced dinky one.</p><p>“Aw.”</p><p>“I don’t need your pity,” Foggy said bitterly.</p><p>“I knew you liked him.”</p><p>Shut up, Marci Stahl.</p><p>“Your wedding would have been beautiful.”</p><p>“You’re fired,” Foggy said. “Tell me something so terrible I forget all this.”</p><p>Marci’s smile bloomed.</p><p>“Okay, so there’s this new girl,” she started.</p><p>Foggy settled in and swallowed the thick clot of rage and guilt in the back of his throat.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>He should have known that Daredevil was a megalomaniac asshole. He really should have. He and Kirsten didn’t even have time to put Operation: Cry Wolf into effect when DD came crashing down right before their eyes in front of the police station.</p><p>He snarled and threw his prey for the night up against one of the station’s windows. He raised that club of his and missed the guy’s head once. The window behind it shattered into spiderwebs. The next blow didn’t miss and the prey went limp.</p><p>DD picked him away from the window by the front of his shirt and dragged him the few steps to the station’s automatic doors. People gazed on in horror as he released his grip and the man hit the concrete with a wet thud.</p><p>Daredevil sneered at the guns pointed at his face.</p><p>He vanished into the night, ignoring their shouting, and Foggy and Kirsten stood still as officers swarmed out of the station and gave chase. When they were gone, Foggy and Kirsten re-entered the building, feeling smug as shit.</p><p>Matt was out of handcuffs within the hour.</p><p>Foggy told him to save his ‘thank you’s. They’d barely done anything in the end. It was the abominable DD who’d been both his doing and undoing.</p><p>“Maybe change the name, though,” Foggy joked.</p><p>Matt tipped his head to the side with his face directed towards the street over. He frowned. Kirsten and Foggy watched him and then looked out that way after him.</p><p>“You okay?” Kirsten asked.</p><p>Matt twisted violently behind them and vomited.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>In hindsight, the first thing they should have done was take Matt to the hospital.</p><p>He definitely had the remnants of a poorly-treated concussion. The nurses at the clinic took him off Foggy and Kirsten’s hands nearly the second he stepped in. One of them knew him by name. She asked him what on <em>earth</em> had happened to him.</p><p>Matt was too shaky to answer her. He asked for the third time, still almost imperceptibly, for a stick.</p><p>He didn’t want to go to the hospital. He wanted to go home.</p><p>Foggy felt bad for leaving him with these folks, but ten minutes after Matt had been taken away, while Foggy and Kirsten were standing in the waiting area, trying to decide what to do next, the Beast himself came scrambling in through the doors.</p><p>Jack Murdock, somehow only in his fifties after all these years, was as broad and jacked as ever. The gal at the front desk knew him, too. She stood up and calmed him with her hands in front of her chest, palms facing out.</p><p>“He’s in good hands,” she said. “Let’s take some breaths.”</p><p>She lead Battlin’ Jack back to his kid like a mouse leading an elephant.</p><p>“Wow,” Kirsten said. “Talk about speed dial.”</p><p>Truly. Foggy wasn’t sure that his pops could gun it from 7 blocks over in less than fifteen minutes. He might make it in half an hour if he didn’t get distracted talking to someone on the way.</p><p>“Should we wait?” Kirsten asked.</p><p>“Nah, it’s probably fine to—”</p><p>“DAD. <em>Jesus</em>, you monster. DAD.”</p><p>Foggy stopped dead at the footfalls of a third Murdock.</p><p>Did he know this one? No. But they could only be a Murdock with that shock of orange on their head. And more terrifyingly, they could only be a Murdock because they were obviously Matt Murdock.</p><p>Obviously.</p><p>“Oh damn,” Kirsten said. “They’re like <em>identical</em>-identical.”</p><p>Foggy could have choked.</p><p>Matt’s twin held his knees and gasped in the entrance of the hospital like any reasonable person chasing an ox. He straightened up and jogged over to the mouse manning the front desk. He was breathless and didn’t even have to say full words before she was nodding and leading him back too.</p><p>“That was?” Foggy said.</p><p>“Mike,” Kirsten finished for him kindly. “I’ve heard of him. Never met him, though.”</p><p><em>That</em> was Matt’s twin?</p><p>“He’s kinda hunky,” Kirsten hummed. “Jack said he was puny.”</p><p>Puny to whom, sir? A horse?</p><p>“Well, I guess that settles it,” Kirsten said. “The whole family’s here. No reason for us to stick around.”</p><p>Foggy mechanically looked down at her and then back at the empty reception desk.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>He went home.</p><p>He had a drink.</p><p>He had another drink.</p><p>He had a smoke.</p><p>Then he laid back on his couch and stared up at the ceiling for a good five minutes, trying to process all of the thoughts whirling around in his head.</p><p>There were a lot of them. But the main one was the realization that Mike Murdock looked exactly like Matt, knew his deepest secret, and came from a family of boxers.</p><p>He wasn’t a boxer himself because if he was, then the cops wouldn’t have brought in the blind twin. But if Mike wasn’t a boxer, then why was there blood scraped down the side of his shirt? Surely it was an accident, right? Maybe he’d nicked his finger. Maybe his father had and he’d helped clean up the wound.</p><p>But what if he hadn’t? What if he’d gone home and changed clothes? What if his side was scraped up or stabbed and he’d grazed the wound when he’d changed?</p><p>What if Matt, who had spent two full days in a cell more or less okay, if injured, had felt something with those senses of his? Something familiar in the direction that Daredevil had gone. Something so sickeningly familiar it had caused him to vomit.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Foggy called Kirsten. She didn’t answer the first two times, but he got her on the third.</p><p>“What if Mike Murdock is Daredevil?” he asked to sudden agitated silence.</p><p>“Mike?”</p><p>Yes, Mike. Mike with Matt’s same features. Mike who had a stake in his sibling’s freedom—who might, without being called for, put on a ruse to get Matt out of trouble.</p><p>Kirsten’s breathing seemed harsh on the other side of the line.</p><p>“Are you drunk?” she asked.</p><p>Possibly, but it didn’t matter.</p><p>“Mike’s a set builder, Foggy,” Kirsten said.</p><p>And possibly Daredevil.</p><p>“Why would he be Daredevil?”</p><p>“You’re asking the wrong person,” Foggy said. “But trust me on this one and we can find the right one.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The Murdocks lived in an older apartment. Matt didn’t live with them, usually, but he was there now, curled up on the couch looking less like an exonerated man and more like seasick fisherman. He didn’t answer the door; Jack did. He appeared surprised at their presence, although grateful and polite. He shook Foggy’s hand but didn’t recognize him from Columbia.</p><p>When he turned to tell Matt who’d walked in, Foggy saw a web of scarring on his temple. He noticed as Jack harassed Matt up to sitting that Jack slurred a few words here and there. Matt caught his arm and told him to buzz off affectionately, despite looking pale as a ghost.</p><p>For the barest of seconds, Foggy saw Jack’s hand linger on Matt’s head.</p><p>It was as if he wanted to take his temperature but knew he wouldn’t be allowed to.</p><p>It was funny seeing them together like this.</p><p>Matt had dropped out of law school to take care of his father. Jack had started having seizures around then and Matt dropped everything to go be with him. Foggy, as a young person, had really only understood on a surface level why Matt would do such a thing. Now, however, he did understand.</p><p>Jack was Matt’s coach, yeah, but he’d nearly lost Matt when he was small. And then he’d been fully prepared to give his life for his kids the moment he caught that bullet in the temple. Jack would do anything to keep Matt safe, and Matt would do anything to keep his dad healthy. It was cyclical and heart-warming.</p><p>Or at least it would be, if not for the elephant in the room.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Foggy and Kirsten waited until Matt shooed Jack off to go make coffee to sit down next to him on the old, blanket-covered couch.</p><p>As soon as Jack was out of earshot, Matt brought his face up and whispered that he was going to be sick. Foggy dutifully handed him the bowl by the couch. He didn’t puke, but God, it looked like he wanted to. That was as much of a confession as anything in Foggy’s books.</p><p>“You know why we’re here, don’t you?” Kirsten asked softly while Jack took things down from shelves in the kitchen.</p><p>Matt swallowed thickly.</p><p>“I don’t believe it,” he whispered. “I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it.”</p><p>Foggy caught his shoulder.</p><p>“He needs to stop,” he said lowly. “He put <em>you</em> in danger, Matt.”</p><p>“He wouldn’t,” Matt murmured. “He’s never. He’s—he’s not a bad person. No matter what anyone says. He wouldn’t do that to Dad.”</p><p>Matt’s eyes could open now that the swelling had gone down. They were glossy.</p><p>Kirsten took in a breath and then they all jerked up when Jack cleared his throat.</p><p>“Secrets?” he asked.</p><p>“We’re makin’ a treehouse,” Matt told him immediately. “No Old Men allowed.”</p><p>Jack lifted the eyebrow that wasn’t interrupted by scars. He handed Kirsten a mug.</p><p>“Milk and sugar, hon,” he said amiably. “You tryin’ to put the older one where the younger one just came from?”</p><p>Horror spread through Foggy’s shoulders, but it must have been nothing compared to Matt’s. He’d gone completely still and silent. Jack looked down at him with gentle eyes.</p><p>“One moment,” he said.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Jack handed Foggy a mug of coffee so dark it looked like syrup. He brushed a cup for Matt against his knuckles. It wasn’t coffee. It looked like tea.</p><p>“I’m sorry, kiddo,” Jack said. “You think so much of Mikey, I didn’t want anyone but him to tell you.”</p><p>Matt didn’t accept the mug.</p><p>He looked about ready to weep. Jack set the cup on a coaster on the low coffee table instead and settled in next to his son. He smoothed a hand over his hair like he was a little kid, and then fixed sharp hazel eyes on Kirsten and Foggy.</p><p>“You knew,” Kirsten breathed.</p><p>“You knew,” Foggy said measuredly. “Was that why you were so insistent on paying bail?”</p><p>Jack leaned back and let Matt lean against him.</p><p>“I wasn’t getting bail together,” he said. “Where do youse think I could find that kinda cash, huh?”</p><p>Foggy frowned.</p><p>“Then what were you doing?” he asked.</p><p>Jack said nothing. Matt tipped his face towards him and his brow sunk.</p><p>“You told him to get me out,” he said quietly.</p><p>“You’re the younger, he knows the rules,” Jack said simply. “And I told him last month that he was playin’ with fire.”</p><p>“Dad,” Matt pleaded. “Tell him to come home.”</p><p>Jack scoffed.</p><p>“He’ll slink back in when he’s ready,” he said.</p><p>“<em>Dad</em>.”</p><p>“No,” Jack said firmly in what Foggy could only presume was his coach-voice.</p><p>Matt laid a hand on one of his father’s enormous wrists and wrapped his fingers around it as far as they could go.</p><p>“<em>Please</em>,” he said.</p><p>Jack turned his gaze back to Foggy and Kirsten.</p><p>“Y’all are sharp as shit,” he said simply.</p><p>“<em>Dad</em>.”</p><p>“This is fucked up, Mr. Murdock,” Foggy said simply. “The ethics are—”</p><p>“I know ethics, son, I’ve lived ‘em,” Jack interrupted. “And Mike’s got the same thick skull I do. He’s gotta learn the hard way that all this shit does is put people in danger. It’s the only thing that’ll get him to stop.”</p><p>“Dad,” Matt said. “He won’t stop like this. He’s spiraling. The longer he’s out there by himself—”</p><p>“—then he’ll spiral,” Jack said definitively. “And he’ll bother the Father about it and then the Father’ll send him back here when he’s repented like always. Maybe it’ll even stick this time now that it’s <em>you</em> he’s put in the line of fire.”</p><p>The silence felt like glass.</p><p>“He needs help,” Kirsten said quietly. “Counseling. Therapy.”</p><p>“An outlet, more like,” Jack said. “I’ve offered him one.”</p><p>One? Boxing?</p><p>“He’s been working on it for a while now.”</p><p>Kidnapping? Building houses?</p><p>“Now, is there a reason y’all came here besides to wring information out of my son?” Jack asked.</p><p>This motherfucker was scary. The mobster that put him down the first time must have been relieved when he didn’t get back up after the first shot.</p><p>“No sir,” Foggy said, standing up. “Thank you for your time and honesty. We won’t tell anyone about this.”</p><p>Kirsten made a choked off alarmed sound as Foggy dragged her up. Jack stood and Matt followed suit.</p><p>“I’ll see you out,” Jack said simply.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“That was scary as shit,” Kirsten said. “He could’ve crushed our heads between his giant hands at the same time.”</p><p>Yeah.</p><p>Foggy glared over his shoulder. He heard Kirsten stop a few paces ahead. She tugged at his jacket.</p><p>“Foggy?”</p><p>“Fuck you, Mike Murdock,” Foggy spat at the apartment.</p><p>There was a pause.</p><p>“Yeah, fuck you, man,” Kirsten chimed in.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>There were piles of folders on his desk. Scores of them. They were never ending, even at seven at night when the sun had fallen and everyone else had gone home. They were all that pale beige of future torture, and suddenly they were joined by a single wing-tipped honey-colored shoe.</p><p>The shoe led to a neat green sock which disappeared under a perfectly cut slate-gray pantleg. That leg led to a knee, but Foggy couldn’t see past that or the club just inches away from his face.</p><p>He found it hard to breathe all of the sudden.</p><p>“Nelson.”</p><p>How—how had he gotten in here?</p><p>“Hey. I’m talkin’ to you, class-traitor.”</p><p>That club came even closer.</p><p>“Look at me.”</p><p>Foggy swallowed and followed the line of the club to bright red hair topped by a set of blue sunglasses.</p><p>Haha. Blue. You know, because Matt always wore red ones.</p><p>
  <em>Jesus, God, help him.</em>
</p><p>Mike Murdock was here in a suit.</p><p>“I don’t like you talkin’ to my family,” Mike drawled. “So you’re gonna stop, ya hear?”</p><p>He wore a suit. Why was he wearing a suit?</p><p>“Oh, you like the tags?” Mike smirked. “Thanks, I got ‘em just for the occasion. Hey, ask me what the occasion is.”</p><p>Foggy wasn’t sure that he had a choice.</p><p>“What’s the occasion?” he warbled.</p><p>“Oh, you know, just a little celebration,” Mike hummed. “It’s not every day a man passes the bar, you know?”</p><p>No.</p><p>No, no, no. C’mon man, <em>no</em>.</p><p>“I’m thinkin’ about settin’ up shop, actually,” Mike hummed. “Maybe get a firm goin’. Get enough cash to send Matty back to finish what he started and then together, we can be Murdock &amp; Murdock. Whaddya think? Catchy, ain’t it?”</p><p>“Fuck you,” Foggy snapped. “You used him like a tool.”</p><p>Mike’s smirk dropped right off his face.</p><p>“That was a mistake,” he snapped. “It won’t be repeated.”</p><p>“Is this what your old man set you up to do? Have either of you ever told Matt a single truth in the last decade?” Foggy grated out.</p><p>The storm in Mike’s face left and was replaced by something much, much colder.</p><p>“Matt knows what he needs to know and not a lick more,” he said. “He and Dad have already paid their dues to this city. It’s my turn. What happened to them won’t happen to another soul in the Kitchen so long as I can help it. And <em>you</em> aren’t going to stand in the way of that, you feel me, friend-o?”</p><p>Foggy set his brow.</p><p>“Matt is my friend,” he said.</p><p>“Cute. He’s <em>my </em>brother,” Mike said. “Answer the question.”</p><p>“I’m not promising a vigilante shit.”</p><p>“How about a colleague then?” Mike bargained.</p><p>“You’re a disgrace to this profession,” Foggy snapped.</p><p>“Maybe. But what if, dear Nelson, all this lawyering makes me go straight, hm?”</p><p>Oh. <em>Oooooh.</em> Goddamn you, Mike Murdock.</p><p>“Awww,” Mike crooned. “Look at that face. You have hope, don’t you? Such an optimist. Say, Matty said you were the best in your class. You know, I was the last—passing’s passing, though, you know what I mean? But see the thing is that people in this profession sure ask a lot of questions, and I could really use a happy medium. So what do you say?”</p><p>Foggy frowned.</p><p>“Say to what?” he asked.</p><p>Mike’s grin spread like wildfire and he finally took his club out of Foggy’s face. He replaced it with a hand. The inside was calloused and blistered.</p><p>“Partners?” he asked.</p><p>P-PARTNERS?</p><p>No. NO. Fuck YOU, Murdock. Fuck you.</p><p>“Murdock, Nelson, and Future Murdock,” Mike hummed. Then froze. “Oh wait,” he said. “Murdock and Nelson—no, no. Oho. Nelson and Murdock. What a ring! What a show! I love it already. So what do you say? My compliance for your silence, huh? You wanna help my sweet baby brother? You wanna get a vigilante off the streets of your blessed, beloved home, Franklin Nelson? Two birds, one stone—you’re lookin’ right at ‘im.”</p><p>No. Foggy wouldn’t. Foggy couldn’t. He’d told Hogarth—</p><p>“Forget Hogarth,” Mike said brightly. “You’re up here fixin’ rich peoples’ problems for pennies out of their wallets. These folks pay you to hide their traffic violations—fuck ‘em! They ain’t worth the skin of your teeth, Mr. Nelson. All that talent—and you <em>are</em> talented—think of who you could serve with it. Think of who we could help.”</p><p>Foggy realized in cold horror that he <em>was</em> thinking about it. And it felt—</p><p>Oh god, it felt good.</p><p>“Atta boy, atta boy. Look at those cogs tick. Come on, pal. You and me. I’ll go straight, hand to god—at least sometime, anyways--when Matty’s through with school. Let’s put a pin in that place, huh? Then, if you’re finished with me, take him. He’ll have you. You know he would. He told you his secret didn’t he? He trusted you, almost as much as he trusted me.”</p><p>Shut up. Shut up, Mike Murdock.</p><p>“Can’t. It’s a condition. It’s got a temporary fix though. It’s a little pill I like to call a ‘yes.’”</p><p>Fuck.</p><p>“Maybe later, babe. Consent first.”</p><p>FUCK.</p><p>Mike cackled.</p><p>Foggy looked at the folders in his hands.</p><p>“You’re a con man,” he said, slowly standing up.</p><p>“Sure am,” Mike said.</p><p>How long could it be? Matt would finish school fast. Matt was the partner that Foggy had always wanted, always, always. He could—he could put up with Mike. Right?</p><p>“No day but today,” Mike sang softly.</p><p>He let the last note float and with its disappearance, Foggy slammed his eyes shut.</p><p>He grabbed the hand.</p><p>Mike crowed like a rooster.</p><p>“Now <em>that’s </em>what I’m talkin’ about,” he said. “Mr. Nelson, put in your notice, we’ve got to take a tour through some real estate.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  
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